


each the other's world entire

by quixoti



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Blood, Brief Violence, Canon-Typical Swears, Canon-typical alcohol abuse, Gay Panic, M/M, Mental Illness, Religion Kink, Smoking, brief underage with 17/18 year old mac and dennis kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 07:51:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2724503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quixoti/pseuds/quixoti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mac and Dennis survive each other. Mac and Dennis will always survive each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	each the other's world entire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Original prompt was macdennis + kissing, and I turned it into twenty years of Mac and Dennis drifting away from each other and back again. Happy belated birthday, Bio!
> 
> Title taken from Cormac McCarthy's _The Road_.

**1993.**

Dennis Reynolds is all right, Mac supposes, watching Dennis sprawl in the late spring grass, turning his face to the sun. When Mac asked what he was doing, Dennis smiled without opening his eyes and said, “Getting a tan, dude,” and Mac wanted to tell him that he looks fine the way he is, but he doesn’t. He can’t make the words come out.

So Dennis showed up to buy weed one day in their sophomore year and then just never left, claiming he liked someone to smoke with, claiming he never really liked the guys he runs with anyway. Mac knows it’s a load of bullshit, Dennis is easier to read than children’s literature (even though he’d clock you if you said it to his face, likes to think he’s mysterious or some shit), but Mac doesn’t really mind Dennis hanging around. Sure, the dude says weird shit about being God and talks about his friends like they’re his subordinates and has a minutia of odd, unsettling habits. But he’s kind to Mac, and not in a way where Mac can tell the person is being nice because they pity him or think he’s funny to watch, a clown to keep around for a laugh. Dennis isn’t a nice person, not by a long shot, but he at least treats Mac like he’s an actual human being, and he says things sometimes that make Mac feel like he’s burning up from the inside out. So Dennis is okay, Mac supposes. (Mac thinks Dennis is the coolest person he’s ever met.)

Dennis has one eye open now, eyeballing Mac from his perch on the ground. “You look like you’re thinking about some deep shit, dude,” Dennis says, and Mac shifts, trying to kick his face back into neutral. Trying not to show Dennis that he was thinking about him.

Dennis laughs like he knows exactly what Mac is doing and hoists himself up on his elbows. “Mac,” says Dennis, squinting up at the sun, “Mac, would you call yourself a risk taker?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mac says earnestly, scooting closer to Dennis. “I take like, so many risks, bro. I’m probably the riskiest person you’ll ever meet.”

Dennis looks at him in that funny sideways way, like he’s sizing him up. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I tried something new? Took a calculated risk?”

“Trying new stuff is the name of the game,” Mac says, trying to sound like he knows what he’s talking about. Dennis huffs out another laugh and Mac can’t tell if Dennis is pandering to him or if he buys it and suddenly Dennis is so close to him and it doesn’t matter anymore.

“Mac,” Dennis says, centimeters from his face. “Close your eyes.”

Mac doesn’t, sees in full color the exact moment Dennis’s eyes flutter shut and he presses his lips to Mac’s. Mac can see the soft brown of Dennis’s long eyelashes, the soft, pretty skin on his face. Mac sees everything. Mac feels everything. (Dennis’s mouth is warm and wet and he doesn’t have a flavor Mac can describe as anything more than just Dennis.) Mac sees the exact moment Dennis re-opens his eyes and pulls off of Mac. He looks happy, almost. Satisfied with himself.

There’s a moment of silent tension that stretches out until it snaps and Mac scrambles backward and trips several times trying to get up and run home. Dennis doesn’t call after him and Mac doesn’t look back.

(It was Mac’s first kiss.)

Mac avoids Dennis for nearly a month after that, lets the phone ring when he thinks its Dennis calling, spends all his time with Charlie again. Mac thinks he’s going to escape Dennis forever until a hand comes down hard on his shoulder when he’s getting his books out of his locker.

“I need more weed,” says a familiar voice, and Mac doesn’t jump. He doesn’t. “You gonna sell to me or am I gonna have to find a new guy?”

“I got you,” says Mac without turning around.

“Good,” says Dennis. And that’s that.

**1994.**

To say senior prom went badly is to say that a category 5 hurricane is a mild inconvenience. For Mac, it’s one of the best days of his life, because he loses his virginity to a girl who had so much hatred for how Dennis was treating her or whatever bubbling up inside her that she was crazy wild in bed. Or, Mac guesses she was crazy good. He doesn’t really have any reference. He thinks Dennis would be proud of him for how he handled that girl.

He’s leaning against the outside of the school building in the chilly night, staring up at the stars and thanking God for helping him out when Dennis storms out the side door looking like he’s about to smash the next person who talks to him into a bloody, gooey pulp on the sidewalk.

Because Mac has no self-preservation instinct when it comes to Dennis, he throws an arm out and catches Dennis square in the chest. Dennis is shaking.

“Hey,” says Mac.

Dennis makes some kind of furious growl and tries to slide past Mac. “Bro!” Mac says again, louder, more forceful. “Calm down, Dennis.”

“Someone slept with my prom date,” barks Dennis, scarily coherent and clear even though he keeps clenching his fists and he’s red in the face. “Someone thought they had to bring me down by taking my prom date and they’re going to _pay_.”

Mac’s blood runs cold when he realizes that, no, Dennis is not proud of him, and Dennis is going to skin him alive if Mac fesses up. So Mac defaults to his standard way of getting out of trouble—he rats someone out. “Dude, you know Tim Murphy is a giant douche,” he says unsteadily, hoping he doesn’t come off like he’s lying. “He’s at Adriano’s party, probably with your date.” At this, Dennis tries to shove Mac off of him, so Mac fists his hand in Dennis’s shirt, keeps him close. He hates that bastard Tim Murphy but Mac really doesn’t want to be responsible for Dennis murdering him.

“Chill out,” says Mac. Says it a couple times. Dennis keeps taking these big gulps of air and trembling like he’s barely stopping himself from screaming and screaming and screaming and never stopping. Mac has seen glimpses of this Dennis, this dark and uninhibited Dennis, when they’re really high or really drunk and Dennis just says these things that make Mac shift uncomfortably and take another swig so he doesn’t have to think about them anymore. But now he’s seeing the whole picture and it’s even more terrifying. Mac wants to pull Dennis close and never let him go. Mac wants to run far away from Dennis and never see him again.

He settles for middle ground and pulls Dennis in for hug.

“You’re scaring me,” Mac says softly into Dennis’s curls. Dennis releases two shuddering breaths and then shoves Mac off him.

“Mac,” says Dennis in an odd imitation of his normal voice, like when you break something and glue it back together but it never quite works the same way it did before, “I think I should go home.”

Mac nods. They set out into the night. It was never any question of whether Mac is going to go with him.

\---

When they get to Dennis’s house, all the lights are off except in Sweet Dee’s bedroom. It sounds like she’s crying. “She does that,” says Dennis flippantly, flicking on lights as they walk upstairs to Dennis’s room. “My parents are out, they’ll be gone all night,” he says a moment after, answering a question Mac never asked. Mac just nods again even though Dennis can’t see him.

They make it to Dennis’s room, which is nice and pristine and smells like the cologne Dennis wears. Dennis paces around for a moment, like he’s looking for something, and then he collapses on the bed like all the energy is sucked out him.

Mac stands awkwardly in the doorway, inhaling the scent of Dennis.

Without looking up, Dennis says, “Wanna spend the night,” and Mac says, “Yeah,” and then Dennis pats the bed beside him and Mac freezes up, feels so out of place in this giant clean house, feels so out of place with Dennis.

Dennis still hasn’t looked up but he immediately knows what the hesitation is. “Either you can share my bed or go sleep with Dee, dude,” he says into a pillow, “ Don’t be weird about it.”

“The floor is good, really,” Mac lies, shifting from foot to foot. He hates sleeping on the floor, and he and Charlie share a bed whenever they crash at each other’s houses which is like 4 days a week. Mac feels weird about it. Mac starts to think about that time Dennis kissed him and then doesn’t, stops that thought before it becomes anything, shoves it back down inside him as fast as possible. If Dennis can hear Mac’s heart thumping hard in his sternum, he doesn’t mention it.

“Mac,” says Dennis tiredly. “Get in the bed.”

Mac does what Dennis asks. He always does.

He lies down on top of the comforter on the complete opposite side of the bed from Dennis, making sure their bodies don’t even come close to touching, and stares up at the ceiling, letting the light blind him. When Dennis doesn’t say anything for a while, just breathes deeply, Mac says, “Are you going to sleep with the light on?” and Dennis says, “Well, I’m not getting up to turn it off.” Mac doesn’t really want to, either, but he does, swings his legs off the side of the bed and walks over to the wall and flicks the switch. As soon as he does that, he realizes his mistake; now he’s trapped in a dark room with only Dennis Reynolds to guide him back to safety.

“Just follow my voice,” Dennis says and laughs and Mac finds himself laughing too, a little bit. This whole situation is completely ridiculous—Mac should just fess up about the prom date and let Dennis sock him and let it be done—but he can’t bring himself to. He doesn’t want Dennis mad at him, doesn’t want Dennis to shut him out. So he walks unsteadily back in the direction he thinks the bed is in, slamming his knee into the frame of it since Dennis conveniently forgot to warn him he was close.

Dennis laughs again. It’s a good sound, Mac thinks, much preferable to that angry growling Dennis kept making when he found out about his prom date. “Sorry,” says Dennis, in reference to Mac hitting his knee, and then Dennis’s fingers find his wrist and he’s pulling Mac down onto the bed, down on top of Dennis.

Dennis is very warm to the touch. Mac feels like he’s made of ice.

“Mac,” says Dennis, squirming under Mac until their faces are very close. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

Later, when he thinks about this at 3 AM alone in his room, he won’t be able to remember who closed the gap first, who made the first move. He wants to believe it was Dennis, that Dennis tricked him into it, that Dennis worked his devil magic and made Mac do a thing he wouldn’t normally do. But Mac doesn’t actually know, and the guilt needling him in the gut makes Mac suspect that Dennis wasn’t the first one who leaned in after all. Mac doesn’t think about it. (Mac is very good at lying to himself.)

Dennis’s lips are warm and inviting again and Mac feels high from it, from kissing Dennis Reynolds in the dark, from the way Dennis tugs at Mac’s hair and makes pleased little grunts. They kiss for what seems like hours, unhurried and free of inhibitions in the darkness, until Mac feels the urgent press of Dennis’s thumb into his cheek and he pulls off of Dennis’s mouth. Dennis’s eyes are gleaming in the faint moonlight drifting in through the blinds and Mac is sure that if he could see Dennis’s mouth, Dennis would be smiling.

They share a moment where they both are breathing in sync, Mac hovering over Dennis waiting for a sign, until Dennis unceremoniously shoves Mac off to the side of him and turns and buries his face in a pillow, sighing deeply. Mac waits and waits and waits until Dennis’s breath evens out in the comforting rhythm of sleep and only does it hit him, what he’s just done. Hits him hard in the ribs like a well-aimed punch, and he chokes on it, the sudden guilt and shame in his chest and throat.

Dennis is sleeping quietly next to him and Mac imagines himself getting out of the bed and running through the silent streets until he’s home and slipping into his room and never acknowledging this again. Mac imagines himself waking Dennis up with a well-deserved punch to the jaw. Mac imagines himself jerking off in Dennis’s bathroom and saying Dennis’s name when he comes. Every single scenario fills him with revulsion and anger at himself and so Mac can’t bring himself to do anything but listen to Dennis sleep and stare up at the ceiling.

Mac breaks the silence of the room with a quiet “Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.” No one answers him. Dennis doesn’t stir. Mac doesn’t sleep the whole night.

 

**1995, 1996, 1997, 1998.**

Dennis goes away to college because of course he does, he’s smart as hell and rich enough to fill the gaps of what he doesn’t know. Mac and Charlie don’t go. It was never even a question.

Mac comes over to help Dennis pack his shit. The room still smells like that damn cologne.

“Gonna miss hanging with you guys,” Dennis says in a surprising admission of emotion, and the way he says it sounds more like gonna miss you than he probably intended. Mac feels something warm in his belly.

“Yeah, well,” says Mac. He never was good at words. “There’s always the phone.”

“And I’ll be around,” Dennis continues, stuffing what looks like a bunch of VHS tapes into a bag. “It’s still in the city and I have a car.”

“Yeah,” says Mac. He doesn’t know who Dennis is trying to reassure. “You’re gonna get so many hot college girls, dude.”

Dennis smiles, opens another box of tapes and shoves them in too. “Yeah.”

It’s the most awkward Mac has ever been with Dennis. “Anything you want me to do?” he asks, making a show of scanning the room for anything he could help pack.

“Nah,” says Dennis, zipping the bag up and turning around to face Mac where he’s lingering in the center of the room. “I’m almost done here, want me to take you home?”

“I’ll walk, don’t worry about it,” Mac says. “You know my phone number, right?”

Dennis laughs. “Like the back of my hand,” he says, crossing the room to stand in front of Mac. Too close. “Try not to miss me too much,” he says, and Mac knows that fucking look in Dennis’s eyes far too well and when Dennis leans in and kisses Mac, hard, he leaves his eyes open too this time.

It lasts for only a second or two. Dennis’s eyes are the most beautiful shade of blue up close. Dennis grins when he pulls off, a dirty thing, and slings the bag over his shoulder and then he’s gone, tromping down the stairs toward his car, probably so goddamn pleased with himself for doing this to Mac.

Mac stands in the center of Dennis’s room for the longest time. His lips burn. Dennis doesn’t come back inside.

\---

When Dennis is at college, they start The Thing where they check in with each other. Mac suggested it as a half-joke one night when Dennis rang him at about half past 4 AM, slurring his words so much that Mac thinks he’s speaking another language. It wouldn’t be a stretch. Sometimes Mac thinks he and Dennis communicate in their own language that no one else can understand.

“You’re drunk,” Mac says into the phone, pausing the shitty recording of wrestling he’d been up watching.

“Yeah,” Dennis sighs into the phone. “I’m drunk.”

“What do you need, bro?” Mac says, popping open another can of beer and repositioning the giant landline phone on his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“Couldn’t,” says Dennis. “Missed you,” says Dennis. “Getting drunk is better with you,” says Dennis.

Mac knows they’re skirting dangerous territory here, and only one of them has the drunk excuse to cover their ass in the morning, so Mac pounds another beer and wills his heart to stop beating so goddamn fast.

“I’m the life of the party, what can I say,” Mac says instead of acknowledging what Dennis just said. Missed you. “Dude, you sound so smashed.”

“I think I fell up the stairs trying to get back to my room,” Dennis admits, voice low. “Least I didn’t fall down ‘em, I’d bleeding out in the frat house foyer,” he says, and Mac thinks it’s a joke, but Dennis doesn’t laugh. Just takes a sip of something on the other end of the line (Jesus, he’s still drinking) and it occurs to Mac that, if Dennis were to hurt himself, serious enough to go to the hospital, serious enough to die, Mac wouldn’t know.

Mac would be the last to know.

“Dude,” Mac says urgently, “you’re okay, though, right?”

“Bruised pride,” says Dennis.

Mac lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Dennis takes a sip of whatever he’s drinking. Radio silence.

“Dennis,” Mac says, tapping his fingers on the side of his beer can, "If you died, would you let me know?”

“I’d haunt your ass so hard,” Dennis says. “Fuck up your life and shit.”

Despite himself, Mac laughs, more like a giddy relieved giggle than anything. “You should call every night,” Mac says with a flash of bravery. “So I’ll know to expect your pissed off spirit if you don’t call.”

“Sure, okay,” says Dennis. “Yeah.”

Every night that he doesn’t come round Mac waits for the phone to ring and it always does and Dennis is always on the other end with another mostly-bullshit story about how college life is. They talk about nothing, mostly, filling the radio waves with needless drunken chatter, but it’s good. Dennis Reynolds isn’t a man of his word but he always calls Mac, even if it’s just to say, “I’m okay, dude.” Sometimes Dennis doesn’t sound fine, sounds like he’s not even really there, but he always calls.

Mac falls asleep to the sound of Dennis talking more nights than he can count. It doesn’t matter.

\---

Dennis graduates. Mac goes to see him get his diploma, cheers when the man on the stage calls _Dennis Reynolds_ and hands Dennis a piece of paper that cost more money than Mac’s family has ever seen in their lifetime. After the event Dennis finds Mac in the crowd, throws his arm around him with the most genuine smile Mac has seen on Dennis’s face in a long time.

“You did it, bro!” Mac says, proud. “What are you gonna do next?”

“Mmm,” says Dennis, leaning all in Mac’s space. “I don’t know, I always thought I’d like to open up a bar.”

“We’d get laid, like, all day long,” says Mac, pretending to consider the bar proposition. For Mac, having dreams of owning businesses and going to college were just things he thought about on Good Days, when he imagined what his life would be like if they had money, if he knew how to use words good.

Dennis cheers. “I'd drink to that!” and then, “You really think we could open up a bar?”

 _We._ “You’ve got a degree, dude, you can do anything,” Mac assures him. Mac thinks that, if Dennis wanted it, Dennis could have the whole entire world in the palm of his hands.

They leave together. Mac took the bus to get there and Dennis insists that it’s no problem, that he wanted to go hang out with Mac after the graduation anyway so he’ll just drive them. They shout about meaningless things over Dennis’s weird 80s music.

“You know,” Dennis says later, pulling his Range Rover into the McDonald’s driveway and not looking at Mac, “I’ve got to get an apartment now that I’m out of college. We should, we should get one together. It makes sense.”

Mac smiles.

 

\---

 

Mac and Charlie are in Charlie’s basement, huffing glue and watching cartoons on a shitty TV set. Mac inhales deeply and then passes the bag to Charlie.

“Dennis wants me to move in with him,” he says. He doesn’t know why he says it. “We’re supposed to start looking at places this weekend.”

Charlie chokes on nothing. “Tell me you aren’t that stupid,” he says, eyebrows creeping so far up his face like they want to hide in his hairline. He looks dead serious in the way that Charlie is never serious. “Tell me you aren’t dumb enough to move in with someone you’re so fucking in love with.”

Mac grabs Charlie’s wrist. A warning. “What the fuck did you say?”

Charlie sighs and smacks Mac’s hand off his arm. “Nothing. Nothing. Forget it, dude.”

Mac doesn’t forget it, thinks about it when he’s lying in bed and can’t sleep. His brain says, _Tell me you aren’t that stupid_. His mouth says, _I can’t_. His mouth says a prayer.

**1999.**

“It should be an Irish Catholic bar,” Mac says, sprawled on the couch, shot of tequila in his hand. “That would be awesome.”

Dennis snorts from his end of the sofa. Mac’s foot is in his lap and he’s resting his writing pad on Mac’s calf muscle.

“A Catholic bar? What, you wanna run confessional in the men’s room? Give free rosary beads with every 5 drinks?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” says Mac. “I’m sure it’s not as good as the ideas on your notepad—oh wait! It’s blank.”

Dennis sighs. “We gotta make it classy, bro.”

“What do you know about classy?”

“Says the guy who cuts the sleeves off every shirt he owns.”

They pretend to be pissed but they never are. It’s routine, now that they live together—Dennis comes home, they argue about nothing, and sit too close on the couch. Most of the time, Mac gets blackout drunk and doesn’t think about Dennis’s lips. Routine.

Dennis swipes the shot glass from Mac’s hand and downs it, setting the glass unsteadily on the coffee table. “You have an alcohol problem,” says Dennis. “You know it’s 2 pm?”

“You have an ugly problem,” Mac retorts, closing his eyes. It’s not his finest comeback, he’ll admit, but he thinks it’s pretty good for thinking on his feet.

“Don’t you dare fall asleep on your back like that, you’ll choke on your puke and die,” says Dennis, whose fingers are now firmly curled around Mac’s wrist. “C’mon, sit up.”

Mac groans but lets Dennis yank him up. “You hate fun,” he says to Dennis. “An Irish Catholic bar would be fun.”

Dennis looks mildly amused. It’s a good look on him. “You hate sobriety and brushing your teeth,” he says. “Also, you drank the last of the tequila so I’m pissed at you.”

“My mouth still tastes like tequila, I bet,” says Mac. Mac doesn’t know what provokes him to say it. Dennis gets that look in his eyes, the one Mac sees in his dreams, the one that means Dennis is about to get what he wants, and suddenly Dennis’s fingers are in his hair and his tongue is in his mouth and it’s what Mac has been itching for since 1995. Mac feels overwhelmed by it, feels more drunk than he’s ever been in his life. Dennis is making little moaning noises into Mac’s mouth when Mac yanks on his hair and before Mac can say _our father who art in heaven_ Dennis has him on his back and Dennis’s hand is on his belt and he’s saying something.

“Mac,” he’s saying. “Mac, let me make it good for you.”

“Yeah,” Mac says. He feels like he’s drowning. “Please.”

The whole time Dennis jerks him off he says the dirtiest things into Mac’s ear. Says _been thinking about this_ , says _you’re so good, baby_ , says _Mac_. Mac comes when Dennis bites down hard on his jaw.

“Hmm,” says Dennis, sitting up. His fingers are covered in come. “So it does.”

Mac says, “What.” Dennis says, “Your mouth. It does taste like tequila.”

Mac hears water running and then the apartment door slamming shut. Tomorrow, there will be a mark where Dennis bit him. Tomorrow, Mac will go to church.

 

**2000.**

2000 is a good year. Paddy’s Irish Pub becomes a legitimate business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mac has a real, legal job working with his three best friends: Charlie, Dennis, and beer. Dennis said he wanted to go with an Irish theme when he brought up the idea of Charlie and Mac co-owning it with him and Mac and Charlie saw no reason to argue with him, so an Irish pub it became. It’s only when Dennis slides onto the barstool next to him and murmurs, “So. You like the name?” that Mac starts to feel like a deer with a crosshair on the back of his head.

“It’s fine,” says Mac, feeling nervous for no discernable reason. “The Irish theme is awesome.”

“I know,” says Dennis smugly, “I picked it ‘cause you said so.”

Mac feels a lead weight drop to the pit of his stomach. He slams the beer he was drinking down on the bar so hard he’s afraid it’ll shatter because _fuck_ , because of course this was another one of Dennis’s long cons, because of course Dennis exists just to fuck with Mac’s head. Mac’s hand drifts to his neck unconsciously, rubs at the spot that was red and tender for days, that made him sick every time he looked in the mirror. Mac feels like the bullet already went through the back of his head.

Mac takes several deep breaths. “Back office,” he says, jumping off the barstool and slamming the door on his way in. He doesn’t say please and he doesn’t look back but Dennis follows him, just like he knew he would.

“What—“ Dennis begins. Mac cuts him off by slamming him into the wall.

“You son of a bitch,” Mac hisses, getting in Dennis’s face. Dennis is smiling. “You son of a bitch!”

Dennis looks unaffected by Mac quivering with anger two inches from his face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says innocently, and Mac loses it, slams Dennis’s head into the wall behind him and then kisses him.

It’s not nice, it’s not soft and warm. Someone is bleeding and everything tastes like rust and Dennis is pulling Mac closer, closer. Mac feels like he’s completely gone off the deep end. Dennis rocks his hips against Mac’s, experimentally, and Mac shoves him off, disgusted.

Dennis is the one who was bleeding. His hair is ruffled like he just had sex and his lip is red with blood and he looks so fucking pleased with himself.

“You should be ashamed,” Mac tells him, trying and failing to hide his own erection. “You should be ashamed,” he repeats, storming out of the back room and into the bathroom where Charlie is busy cleaning a urinal.

“Get the fuck out of here, Charlie,” Mac nearly screams. Charlie sets the cleaning supplies down on the floor very slowly, staring Mac in the eyes the whole time. _Tell me you aren’t that fucking dumb._ Charlie doesn’t say anything, though, thank God for that, just leaves silently. Charlie may be the most emotionally stunted human Mac has ever met, but Charlie is so good about Mac, knows Mac’s limits and when to push and when to not. When Mac is sure Charlie is gone, he locks himself in a stall and jerks himself off hard and fast.

He says Dennis’s name when he comes. It doesn’t fucking matter.

**2001, 2002, 2003.**

Mac and Dennis survive Y2K, Mac and Dennis survive 9/11, Mac and Dennis survive each other. It’s a goddamn miracle.

The dark circles under Dennis’s eyes are large enough to declare themselves a sovereign nation. Mac doesn’t know when it started, only that he kept coming home to empty bottles of hard liquor and pill bottles with long ass scientific names on the labels and Dennis looks like a fucking dead person, lifeless and exhausted and staring straight ahead at nothing. His already hairpin trigger temper is multiplied tenfold. The long and the short of it is that Dennis isn’t sleeping. The long and the short of it is that the Dennis who lives with him now is unrecognizable. Dennis Reynolds is a nuclear bomb inside of a human body and every time Mac touches him he’s afraid that Dennis is going to go off and take Mac out with him.

Mac wakes up sometime in the early morning. He doesn’t know what time it is except that it’s late and he hears someone banging around in their kitchen. Mac is scared shitless but he slides out of bed anyway, tries to make no sound as he peeks out his bedroom door.

It’s just Dennis rummaging through a cabinet.

“You scared me,” says Mac, walking into the kitchen to see what Dennis is doing. “Thought you were a home invader.”

“Sorry,” Dennis mumbles. It sounds like he used all his energy to get it out. Mac is just about to say “well, goodnight” and go back to sleep, but then Dennis sways a little, like he’s gonna fall over at any moment, and Mac rushes to his side, forgetting himself a little. Dennis doesn’t even acknowledge Mac’s hands on the small of his back.

“Dennis, when is the last time you got any sleep?”

“Dunno,” says Dennis. He closes the cabinet slowly and with obvious effort, and suddenly Mac feels so fucking desperate for a Dennis who would shove him off if Mac tried to steady him, for a Dennis who would bang cabinets louder in the night if he knew it would piss Mac off. For anything other than this lifeless shell wearing Dennis’s face.

“C’mon,” says Mac, pulling Dennis toward Dennis’s bedroom. Dennis lets himself be dragged, no fight at all. It makes Mac mad. He wants to hit Dennis, wants to punch him until Dennis feels something. But he doesn’t do that, just walks him over to Dennis’s giant bed and pushes him down with a little more force than necessary.

“I’m gonna go get you another blanket,” Mac says, when Dennis just sits on the side of the bed and stares at Mac like Mac knows the answer to every question Dennis has ever had. “And then you’re gonna go the fuck to sleep.”

Surprisingly strong fingers close around his wrist. “Don’t go,” says Dennis, hoarse and soft in the still morning air. “Please.”

“I—“ Mac says. Mac wants to say, _fuck you_. Mac wants to say, _I don’t owe you anything_. If Mac was the kind of man he wants to be, he would say those things. But instead, he sits down the bed, lets Dennis pull him down next to him. Because of course he does. They’ve done this before.

Dennis is still just fucking looking at him. “I’m here, asshole,” Mac says, and Dennis’s lips quirk up in some imitation of a smile. The sun is starting to rise outside Dennis’s window.

“Not going anywhere,” Mac says, quieter.

Dennis nods. Dennis lays back on the bed and indicates he wants Mac to come with him, so Mac does, lets himself be manhandled until he’s right next to Dennis in the bed. (They’ve done this before.) But instead of Dennis trying to devour Mac in the dark, he just puts his giant hands on Mac’s chest, like he’s checking that he’s solid, that he’s really there. Mac stares at Dennis and Dennis stares at Mac until Dennis finally closes his eyes and few moments later starts snoring softly. Dennis looks better like this, with his eyes closed, with his face made gentle and calm with sleep. Mac could go, but he said he wouldn’t. He stays and watches Dennis sleep for hours until Dennis finally jolts awake again, looking slightly more energized, slightly more alive. Dennis’s fists curl in Mac’s shirt and pull him closer, closer.

“Thank you,” Dennis breathes, and then he kisses Mac gently on the mouth. It’s not like last time. When he pulls off, his eyes are sparkling, and Mac thinks that this is what it’s like the second the sun comes out after a tornado. The damage is done but we can always rebuild.

Mac and Dennis survive each other. Mac and Dennis will always survive each other.

 

**2004.**

Mac wakes up one morning to the sound of Dennis swearing loudly at something in the living room. While that’s not an uncommon occurrence, Mac hoists himself out of bed with a groan and a wince anyway to see what Dennis is so pissed off about. When he meanders in the living room, Dennis has a blanket draped over his shoulders and he’s banging on the thermometer with a screwdriver.

“The fucking heat is out!” Dennis shouts, turning to Mac and brandishing the screwdriver like it’s a sword. Mac suppresses a laugh. “It’s so fucking cold, dude.”

Mac wipes the sleep from his eyes as he plods into the kitchen in search of coffee. Sure enough, Dennis has some in a cup on the counter waiting on him.

“It is pretty cold,” Mac admits, wishing he had worn something with sleeves. “Call the landlord.”

“They’re not fucking answering,” Dennis says, gesticulating at the phone like it has personally wronged him. “We are going to freeze to death.”

Mac pretends to be very invested in the chip on the rim of his coffee cup, biting his lip not to laugh. “I’ll get you some blankets from my room, no need to be a pussy about it,” he says. “We aren’t going to die.”

With the most pitiful expression he can muster, Dennis says, “Mac, there is _snow_ on the ground, this is a dire situation.”

“We live in Philly, of course there’s snow."

Dennis still looks personally offended by everything in the world and it’s way too early for this. Mac’s going to laugh and Dennis is going to threaten to break his nose and that would be okay except Dennis really does look cold and Mac doesn’t want Dennis to aim that screwdriver at his face, so he disappears into his room and gathers up all the blankets he can find and drags them back into the living room.

Dennis still looks pitiful so Mac throws the blankets down on the couch and pats the couch invitingly. Dennis arches his eyebrow but sits down anyway, piling all the blankets on top of himself like he’s trying to personally heat the entire building. Mac plops down next to him, right in his space. Their thighs are touching.

“It’s not cuddling if it’s a life or death situation, bro,” says Mac. He slings his arm casually over Dennis's shoulder. Dennis laughs. It’s good.

The heat doesn’t come back on all day. They don’t go to the bar. They just watch shitty TV and share body heat and if Mac is fixated on how close Dennis’s lips are too his neck, well, no one has to know.

 

**2005.**

“If you lowered your standards, you would get laid more,” Mac is saying, standing too close to Dennis in the alley. “I want to try your drink,” Mac is saying, and he’s touching Dennis’s hand and Dennis is frowning at him.

“You do not get to try my delicious healthy drink after making fun of it,” Dennis retorts, and Mac thinks that they can go back to normal, they can pretend last night never happened. Mac can pretend last night never happened.

“She didn’t have any diseases, dude!” Mac says, keeping the charade going. He likes this, lying to Dennis, making Dennis believe Mac slept with that whale of a girl instead. If he lies hard enough, he can start to believe it.

What happened was Dennis got so fucking drunk that he cornered Mac in the kitchen and begged Mac to let him suck his dick. What happened was Mac isn’t a strong enough man to say no.

Dennis’s voice is still a little rough. All Mac can hear is Dennis pulling off his cock to say _come in my mouth_. All Mac can hear is the moan Dennis made when he did. Dennis shifts next to him and their hands touch and all Mac can think of is Dennis’s come on Mac’s fingers when Mac jerked him off afterward.

2005 is not a good year.

 

  **2006.**

 

Dennis’s hand connecting with his cheek is almost refreshing. It sparks alive something in Mac that he’d forgotten he was capable of. Ever since the Kitchen Incident Mac has been on fucking eggshells around Dennis, tiptoeing around anything resembling emotions lest the levee break and drown the both of them. But when Dennis hits him, Mac figures that all bets are off, and he feels so powerful when he tackles Dennis onto the lawn and all he can feel is Dennis’s body and blood in his mouth and anger. It feels good to make Dennis feel how Mac feels all the time: bruised and held down. It feels good to make Dennis feel something about him.

Dennis drives him back to the bar and they walk in, shoulder to shoulder. No one is there. Because Mac just doesn’t fucking know when to quit, because Mac wants to push Dennis to the farthest limit there is, he says: “Your mom was the best sex I’ve ever had.” When Dennis slams him up against the wall Mac feels the best he’s felt in years.

Dennis has a split lip, Dennis has a black eye. Mac looks down at his fist and thinks, _I did this._ Dennis’s hands are fisting in Mac’s collar and he’s spitting “Did you think about me when you fucked her,” right into Mac’s face and there it is, there’s the truth. Mac knew it would catch up to him sooner or later.

“You give yourself too much credit,” Mac says, leering at Dennis. “She’s a better lay than you are.”

“What are you talking about,” Dennis says, eyes open in shock.

Mac realizes he’s gone too far and it’s either punch Dennis again or kiss him. Mac leans in before he can help himself. It doesn’t matter. Dennis’s blood ends up in his mouth again and it doesn’t fucking matter.

When Dee and Charlie come out of the back room, Mac and Dennis are drinking beer and eating peanuts and knocking their arms together. They look like the poster boys for domestic violence. It’s not a stretch of the imagination.

 

\--

 

“You left me to get stabbed!”

“You left me to get my ass kicked!”

It’s a standoff in the kitchen, it’s a warzone in the living room. Mac doesn’t know why he and Dennis can’t stop destroying each other but they can’t and it hangs heavy in the air between them. Mac is beat to all hell and back; he only feels good about getting pummeled when it’s Dennis doing it to him.

Mac regards Dennis icily from across the room, clenching his fists. “You look fine. You don’t have a scratch on your pretty fucking face. Look at _me_.”

Dennis rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, you’re gonna be pretty sore in the morning.”

“Shut the fuck up, Den,” says Mac. “Just shut the fuck up.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Dennis is saying. Dennis is crossing the gap between them and Mac is letting him, goddamn it. “I’m sorry, okay? Lapse of judgment, and I lost all the money anyway if it makes you feel better.”

“It doesn’t,” says Mac, but it did.

“Let me get you some ice for those bruises,” Dennis says, disappearing out of sight and reappearing with a bag full of ice cubes a couple minutes later. Mac lets Dennis press the ice against his arms and chest in silence and he doesn’t complain when Dennis cups the back of his head and angles their faces too close for comfort to apply the ice to Mac's cheek, doesn’t complain when their noses brush. He thinks Dennis is going for his mouth but then Dennis kisses the huge welt right below his eye. It’s gentle and sweet like Dennis never is and Mac feels like he’s going to break apart at the seams.

“Sorry,” says Dennis, pulling away a little but still far too close for comfort. Mac will have to accept it.

 

  **2007.**

 

Lately, it’s been getting harder and harder to forget. Lately, Mac thinks Dennis is trying to make it so Mac can’t forget. (Out of curiosity, Mac lines up a shot glass on the bar for every time he and Dennis have kissed that he can remember. “What mistake did you make last night,” Dennis had joked as he strolled through the room. The “you” dies on Mac’s lips.)

Dennis and Mac get taken hostage. Dennis and Mac think there’s a good chance they’re going to die. Mac says, Dennis, I love you. Dennis doesn’t say anything. It doesn’t matter.

Dennis kisses Mac at a red light on their way home after the McPoyles fuck off. It’s needy and as rough as a kiss across the seats of a car can be. Mac pulls away reeling, Dennis pulls away grinning.

“For earlier,” says Dennis. Mac doesn’t say anything. He tastes Dennis all night.

 

\---

 

They’re sitting on opposite sides of the couch one night watching a movie when Dennis hits the pause button without warning.

“What the fuck, bro,” Mac says, offended. “I wasn’t watching that or anything.”

“Good,” says Dennis. “You think I don’t remember that time I sucked your dick,” says Dennis.

Mac chokes on the piece of popcorn he was eating. “What the fuck,” he says again, jumping up off the couch unsteadily and making his way to the door. “What the fuck.”

“Are you gonna run away because I brought up the past? Don’t be such a baby,” calls Dennis tauntingly from the living room. Mac stops in the doorway, considers it.

“Why, you wanna do it again?” Mac says, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway. “You wanna get down on your knees for me again?” Mac is drunk. Mac is not that drunk. Mac is going to convince himself that he was completely smashed and that the devil himself put those words into Mac’s mouth. Mac thinks Dennis could be the devil, leading him into sin.

“I’ve thought about it,” Dennis says levelly, standing up off the couch with a casual stretch. “But I think it’s your turn.”

In the dance competition, Mac does a dance move that makes it look like he’s going down on Dennis. Dennis smiles like a predator honing in on his prey. The entire world is changing beneath them. Mac is terrified.

 

  **2008.**

 

The blue stays on Mac’s tongue for days no matter how hard he brushes. Every time Mac opens his mouth to speak Dennis devolves into peals of ecstatic laughter.

“Leave your mouth open like that again and I might be forced to stick _my_ balls in _your_ mouth,” Mac threatens after two days of this. Dennis stops laughing almost immediately and cocks his head to the side like an idiot dog. Mac thinks that Dennis will finally shut the fuck up about it and leave him alone but he’s not, of course he’s not, because that would mean Mac would get what he wants. Mac still is deluded enough to think this will somehow end well for him until Dennis is backing him up against the kitchen wall. His fingers are on Mac’s belt. Nobody is drunk. There is no plausible deniability.

“I’d been hoping you’d say that,” says Dennis. Mac can’t reply because Dennis’s tongue is in his mouth. Mac’s brain says, _You are getting what you want_. Mac’s mouth lets out a high pitched whine.

“I thought you said it was my turn,” says Mac, when Dennis pulls off and starts kissing along the edge of Mac’s beard.

“I was trying to piss you off,” Dennis admits, hot and quiet into Mac’s ear. “I wanted to get under your skin.”

 _Well, it worked,_ says Mac’s brain. “Dennis,” says Mac’s mouth.

Dennis’s hand is working at Mac’s dick through his jeans while Dennis kisses him gently. It’s not—there’s no throwing punches, there’s no alcohol. Mac wants to scream. Mac wants Dennis to take him completely apart.

Right before Mac is about to come, Dennis pulls off, looking at Mac like he just won a fucking prize.

“This is for putting your pubes on my face, asshole,” Dennis says, turning and striding out of the apartment, leaving Mac wrecked and on the edge against the kitchen wall.

Mac stands in the shower until the water turns cold and he can’t stand it anymore. He says the Lord's Prayer until his voice goes hoarse.

 

\---

 

Mac keeps finding himself in situations like this. Dennis’s gravitational field keeps dragging him back in every time he thinks he’s broken free.

He’s on top of Dennis. He’s thrusting up against Dennis. His hands are in Dennis’s hair. Dennis isn’t pushing him away. Mac’s had this dream before, in the grey dawn, waking up sticky and sweaty and flushed with shame.

“Do you have a boner right now?” says Dennis. “Don’t ruin this for me,” says Mac. He’s so close to getting what he wants, he can almost taste it. Once they take this step, they can’t turn back. Mac thinks God will come down and personally smite him. Mac thinks he almost doesn’t care.

 

  **2009.**

 

Vic is on his knees in some classy hotel room that cost way too much money. Vic has a dick in his mouth. Vic lets Hugh pull his hair and call him baby boy and thrust shallowly into his mouth. Vic loves it.

“Vic, Vic,” Hugh is saying. “I wanna fuck you so bad, baby, wanted it for so long, you gonna let me?”

Vic is nodding. Vic is trembling. Vic lets Hugh manhandle him onto the softest sheets he’s ever felt and doesn’t stop himself from moaning.

“So pretty,” Hugh croons, yanking on Vic’s tie as he struggles to undo Vic’s pants with one hand. “I’m gonna make this good for you, Vic.”

Vic thinks he is going to implode. Hugh is yanking down his pants. Vic says, “Please,” and Hugh smiles with all his teeth. Vic hopes Hugh eats him alive.

Vic makes the most pornographic sounds when Hugh fingerfucks him, thrusts uselessly up into the air and spills filth from his mouth. Tells Hugh he’s the most beautiful person Vic has ever seen, tells Hugh he makes Vic feel like he’s going to combust. Hugh thrives on it, eyes shining with the weight of the praise. When Hugh thrusts into him for the first time, Vic grabs Hugh’s hand and squeezes as hard as he can. When Hugh dips his head low enough where Vic can reach his neck, Vic sucks and bites until Hugh is marked up to the point they can’t pretend this never happened, can’t wash it down the drain of some highbrow hotel. When Hugh comes and collapses on Vic, Vic says, _Dennis._ Vic says, I’ve never felt so good in my life.

Mac says, Our father who art in heaven. Hugh shifts on top of him at that but doesn’t comment. The bite marks are staring Mac directly in the face and they’ve reached the point of no return, sink or swim, fight or flight. If it’s a question of living or dying, Mac wants to go wherever Dennis goes.

 

\--

 

Dennis lights a cigarette as soon as they get into the house, digging a pack Mac didn’t know he still had out of a bathroom drawer and pulling an ashtray out from under the bed.

“I thought you quit smoking,” says Mac.

Dennis blows smoke in his face. “You told me to do this,” he says, leaning against the counter and taking a long drag. “Fuck,” he says.

Dennis never looks hotter than when he’s got a cigarette dangling out of his mouth. Mac is teetering on the edge of yanking that cigarette out of Dennis’s mouth and chasing the smoky taste with his tongue or slapping it out of Dennis’s hand, on the grounds of resisting temptation. Mac does neither, of course, just watches him smoke like Eve watched the snake slither down the tree. If Dennis handed him a forbidden fruit Mac would eat it.

“Stop looking at me like that," says Dennis, stamping his cigarette out in the ashtray. There's a minute of quiet where Dennis is watching Mac and Mac is watching the cigarette smoke drift up through the vents and then Dennis says, very quietly, so much that Mac almost doesn't hear him, "I'm glad you're back."

Mac feels smug. Mac wants Dennis to feel guilty. "Video store guy couldn't peel your apples like me, huh?" Faintly, Mac knows this whole thing is ridiculous, that peeling someone's apples for them and checking in on them every hour skips the line of normal and completely cannonballs into absurdity.

Dennis looks like he's trying not to laugh. "He wouldn't call me every hour to make sure I'm safe, that's for sure," says Dennis with a half smile.

When Dennis kisses him, it's not a surprise. Dennis tastes like cigarettes. It's disgusting. It's perfect. Mac lets Dennis stick his hand in Mac's back pocket and suck on his jaw. "Missed you," Dennis murmurs in his ear when he grinds up against him. It's good to be back.

 

**2010.**

 

Maureen and Jack Kelly and The Lawyer all fuck off and in their wake leave an unsteady silence. Mac’s room is still covered in cat sweaters, his phone still has no service, and Mac wants to punch the contentment right off of Dennis’s fucking face.

“You threw me out again,” says Mac lowly, edging on a growl, crowding Dennis against the doorframe. “After you promised you wouldn’t. I had to bathe myself in the sink! I had to use Charlie’s soap!”

Dennis shudders delightfully against the wall. “Does that make you mad, Mac?” he says with his eyes closed. “Are you gonna do something about it?”

Mac realizes what’s happening the second after he attacks Dennis’s mouth, shoving Dennis hard enough against the wall that one of their paintings rattle. It’s like seeing a person standing on the train tracks but it’s far too late to stop the train--inevitable disaster, playing out before your eyes. The only way to avoid the situation is to pretend it’s not happening so Mac shuts his eyes too, lets himself feel instead of see Dennis’s tongue in his mouth, Dennis’s long fingers in his hair, _Dennis._ Mac is tired of making out up against walls but he never wants to let go.

“Bedroom,” says Mac into Dennis’s neck. It’s not a question, but Dennis stops Mac from dragging him anyway, presses hard on Mac’s wrist until Mac opens his eyes.

“Not in there,” says Dennis, having the decency to look the slightest bit ashamed. “It still smells like Maureen.”

The mention of her name makes Mac flush with anger all over again so he shoves Dennis in the direction of the couch, pleased when Dennis doesn’t argue or mouth off and just lets himself collapse onto the black leather, looking up at Mac with hungry eyes and spreading his legs slowly. He thinks he’s being subtle, but Mac sees right through him. He always does. (He gets hard anyway.)

Mac is straddling Dennis’s hips, Mac is saying things like “oughta fuck you hard enough you won’t run out on me again,” into Dennis’s ear, and Dennis is moaning so prettily Mac thinks that he will never get off to regular porn ever again.

“If I had known this is all I had to do to get you to sleep with me, I woulda kicked you out ages ago,” Dennis breathes into Mac’s neck, and Mac wants Dennis just to shut the fuck up, to never say anything again, so he slides off of Dennis and onto the floor between his legs.

Mac looks up at Dennis and grins. Dennis understands what’s about to happen as it’s already happening. A train wreck. Unlike Mac, Dennis makes no effort to look away, wants to see the impact in full color. Sick fucker.

Mac has only sucked a dick once before, but he knows what he likes done to him, knows what feels good, so he strokes Dennis through his jeans until Dennis is hard and wanting and then he unzips his fly, slowly, making Dennis pant for it. When he finally gets Dennis’s dick out, Dennis has his eyes closed. Good.

Mac licks at the head, pausing to tongue at the slit briefly and slide his palm down Dennis’s dick, stroking against the bundle of nerves under the head on the upstroke. Dennis lets out another gentle whimpering moan and Mac sucks him down good and proper, goes as far as he can go and uses his hand for what he can’t reach, and Dennis’s thighs are trembling and Dennis sounds like he’s falling apart. Mac feels powerful. Mac wants to ruin Dennis for anyone else.

Dennis’s hand finds its way into Mac’s hair, tugging and holding Mac down with the barest amount of pressure. Mac allows it, humming appreciatively around Dennis’s dick, and it only takes a couple more strokes of his hand before Dennis is pushing down on Mac’s head, hard, hard as he possibly can, and coming down Mac’s throat. Mac gags a little but he swallows all he can and when Dennis is spent he lets Mac go and Mac slides off him with a little cough.

“You _asshole_ ,” says Mac, outraged. “Thanks for warning me you were gonna come!”

Dennis is sweaty and looks lightheaded. “That was so good, Mac,” he says in awe instead of responding to Mac. “C’mere.”

“My mouth tastes like your dick,” Mac says, but he lets himself be dragged, lets Dennis press soft and gentle kisses against his mouth, lets Dennis sigh against his lips.

“Did you mean what you said,” says Dennis, “about fucking me?”

Mac closes his eyes. His mouth tastes like come and dick and _Dennis_. “Did you want me to mean it?”

Dennis bites down on his lip, gently. Mac thinks the train hit the person on the tracks a long time ago and Mac and Dennis were too wrapped up in each other to notice.

 

\--

 

Dennis texts Mac a picture of himself with Chase Utley. Dennis looks sexy as hell in that tuxedo, and Chase, of course, is out of this world. Mac wants to scream. Mac wants to break his phone. Mac wants to break Dennis’s nose.

 _Fuck you, Dennis,_ Mac texts back. _Your dick is ugly and I regret having it in my mouth._

Later, Dennis will push Mac up against the desk in the back office and breathe an insincere apology into Mac’s ear and kiss him like he knows Mac likes to be kissed, soft and slow and gentle. It doesn’t matter.

 

**2011.**

 

Ever since Mac gained all his mass, Dennis doesn’t drag Mac into the bar bathroom to grind up against him anymore, doesn’t get drunk and jerk him off on the couch anymore. He looks like he’s thinking about it sometimes, tracking Mac’s movements as Mac goes about the day like Dennis is waiting for the perfect time to strike and pin him down. But he never does. Mac doesn’t miss it, just like he doesn’t jerk off and say Dennis’s name when he comes or watch Dennis’s sex tapes. He doesn’t.

Dennis hasn’t even kissed him in months. Mac thinks that maybe this is God’s way of rewarding him, that God finally realized how pious Mac has been all these years, gave him body mass and freed him from Dennis’s vice grip. Mac thinks it feels like a slap in the face.

Mac wakes up one night to the distinct feeling that he’s being watched. Sitting up slowly and as quietly as possible, he flicks on his lamp and then grabs it immediately to use as a weapon and bash whoever dares intrude in their apartment, but it’s just Dennis, lingering in the doorway with an unreadable expression on his face.

“Christ!” says Mac. “You have got to stop scaring me in the middle of the night.”

Dennis doesn’t say anything, just crosses his arms like he’s trying to give himself a hug and fucking stares at Mac.

Mac rubs at his eyes, exhausted. He doesn’t have time for this bullshit, should just get up and slam the door in Dennis’s ridiculous face, but he hears himself saying “What’s the matter, bro,” all the same. There’s something about Dennis that makes it impossible for Mac to pretend like he doesn’t care.

“I had a dream you died,” whispers Dennis into the darkness, looking somewhere just over Mac’s shoulder. “I thought you—I thought. I. It doesn’t matter.”

Mac realizes the expression on Dennis’s face is fear.

“I’m not dead, Dennis,” he says gently, sliding out of bed to pad across the room. “I’m right here.”

When he gets close enough to touch Dennis, Dennis is trembling almost imperceptibly, like the warning quiver that signifies an earthquake, the split second before the earth shakes itself to bits.

“I’m right here,” says Mac. It seems important that he says it over and over until it fills up both their ears and drowns out anything else.

Dennis wraps his arms around Mac without warning, pressing him close against his chest, breathing shakily. In the quiet, Mac can hear Dennis’s heartbeat.

They stand like that for what seems like forever. Dennis presses his lips very gently to the center of Mac’s forehead. (It’s the first time Dennis’s mouth has been on him in a very long time.)

In the morning, they won’t talk about it. Sometimes Mac wakes up in the middle of the night to hear Dennis screaming in his sleep.

“I’m still here, asshole,” he says to the still and empty room. Dennis can’t hear him.

 

\--

 

After the reunion they go back to the bar and Dennis seems fine—sweaty and exhausted, maybe, but no worse for wear overall. No one says it but it’s all unanimously decided that they’re going to drink and drink and drink until the world loses its harsh edges and they lose the sting of truth in hangovers and headaches.

Dennis goes straight for the tequila, keeps downing shots and clenching his jaw like he’s desperately trying to keep himself from saying something, one of his sleeves rolled up messily and the other one dangles uselessly down around his fingers. It’s unkempt in the way Dennis never lets himself be seen, Mac thinks, a warning. The entire bar is quiet save the comforting hum of the florescent bulbs and their throats working to swallow.

Mac watches Dennis, Dennis stares straight ahead and doesn’t blink. They’ve been here before.

“Dennis,” says Mac, hours after Dee and Charlie drunkenly stumbled home, “I’m gonna go home.”

Dennis nods, sets the shot glass down with sloppy coordination. “Mmmkay,” he says, trying and failing not to slur his words. “’Cya.”

Mac could leave Dennis here to drink himself to death. No one would say Dennis didn’t deserve it. But something feels wrong about how carefully composed Dennis still is—drunk Dennis is loud and touches everyone too much and smiles with all his teeth. This Dennis looks like a crude intimidation of a stone statue that reeks of booze with dark circles under its eyes. He looks like someone with nothing left to lose.

Mac remembers when Dennis would call him from college sounding empty, like he wasn’t even there. Mac remembers the Dennis that wasn’t sleeping, that was taking too many pills, that said _Don’t go, please_. Mac remembers the Dennis that said _I had a dream you died._ Mac realizes that they’re not different Dennises, just a Dennis that got better at hiding himself from Mac.

“You’re coming too,” says Mac firmly, placing a hand between Dennis’s shoulderblades. “Don’t wanna have to clean the bar after you die in here.”

“Charlie would have to do it, not you,” says Dennis, but he gets up anyway, lets Mac steady him when he wobbles. “I wanna classy funeral,” says Dennis.

Mac wants to say, _don’t talk like that_. Mac wants to say, _don’t even go there_. Mac wants to say, _don’t you dare die._

Mac says, “Sure, buddy.” It’s what Dennis wants to hear.

The walk back to their apartment is slow with Mac carrying almost all of Dennis’s weight, Dennis draped over his shoulders and his back like the world’s drunkest blanket. It’s a struggle for Mac to not just drop Dennis and let him die in some gutter.

“So fucking heavy, dude,” says Mac. “Why didn’t I just dump you off in the first sewer we passed?”

Dennis doesn’t answer.

When they finally get home, Mac props Dennis gently up against the wall while his own shaky-drunk hands try to fit the key in the lock. He can feel Dennis watching him, and even though his peripheral is shit, he can see Dennis rubbing at his face and his neck. Dennis only does that when he feels like he doesn’t have control of the situation. Another warning sign.

When they enter the apartment, Dennis immediately stumbles his way into the bathroom and throws up, loudly and violently. Mac shudders and gags too. It’s disgusting, it’s messy, it’s not an uncommon night. When Mac hears the toilet flush and figures the coast is clear, he wanders into the bathroom to see Dennis staring at himself in their dirty mirror. Dennis’s curls are stuck to his forehead with sweat and there are tears in his eyes.

Dennis watches Mac through the mirror.

“You okay?” says Mac.

“You slept with my prom date,” says Dennis.

Before Mac can respond, Dennis is screaming. Something smashes: the mirror. Someone is bleeding: Dennis. The earthquake. It shakes through their house and everything comes crashing down.

“You’re a filthy fucking liar!” Dennis is screeching at the top of his lungs, staring down at his bloody fist. “Told me Murphy did it when it was you!”

Mac raises his hands in surrender and Dennis comes at him swinging.

“I’m going to kill you,” Dennis is screaming right in Mac’s ear. This is the Dennis that has been hiding himself from Mac. This is the Dennis that Mac stopped all those years ago at their prom. This is the Dennis that is going to be Mac’s undoing. “Think it’s cute to sleep with every girl I do? You fucking _fuck_ ,” and then Mac’s nose is shattering and Dennis is hitting him everywhere his hands can reach and the whole world takes on the red edge of pure, unrelenting rage.

Mac’s whole body hurts in some disconnected way; he’s gonna regret this in the morning but his whole body pulses with raw energy and hatred now. Mac’s hands find Dennis’s throat and he squeezes, hard, with every bit of adrenaline strength he has left.

“Calm down!” he yells at Dennis, choking him. “Calm down.”

Dennis’s grip on Mac goes weak and then it disappears, Dennis dropping his hands seemingly against his will. Dennis is going pale in the face. Dennis looks calm, like he does when he’s sleeping, and Mac squeezes just that much harder.

Mac finally lets go when Dennis lets his eyes droop closed and he shoves Dennis backward against the sink, watches as Dennis gulps in air like he’s dying for it, watches Dennis’s knuckles run red into the white porcelain of the sink. Dennis is crying.

Mac feels like he’s been run over by an eighteen wheeler. There’s so much glass on the floor.

“I’ll….I’ll drive you to the hospital in the morning,” Dennis says weakly, looking past Mac at the wall. Even though Mac should be running for his life, even though Mac should slam the door on the way out and never come back, he finds himself crossing the little space between him and Dennis, crunching glass under his shoes as he goes. Dennis has ugly, ugly marks on his throat. Mac puts his lips to them.

Dennis holds Mac like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. “I couldn’t control myself,” he whispers into Mac’s bloodstreaked hair. “I know,” Mac whispers back. The blood from his broken nose stains Dennis’s shirt. The calm after the storm. They can rebuild.

 

**2012.**

 

Mac loses all his mass and Dennis starts fucking around with him again, pops a bottle of champagne at midnight on the New Year and kisses Mac in front of everyone at the bar. No one is surprised except Mac.

“I saw it coming years ago,” Dee says a few days later, when she comes over to their apartment to pick up a jacket she left and Dennis is out. “He hasn’t shut up about you since you met.” Mac just shifts uncomfortably and Dee sighs, rolling her eyes.

“If God was gonna strike you down or whatever, don’t you think he would’ve done it already?” She says on her way out the door. “You think too much, boner.”

They say what you do on New Years is what you’ll be doing for the rest of the year. They say you never see the devil coming until he’s already got you in his hands.

 

\--

“Father, if you’ve been doing the same sin for years and years and years, but you keep coming to confession for it, are you still sinning in the eyes of the Lord?”

“Yes, my son,” says the priest.

Mac sighs. There are three hickeys down the side of his neck that perfectly fit the shape of Dennis’s lips.

 

\--

Dennis waltzes into their apartment with a cheerful grin, still wearing his suit, which is Mac’s first indication that something bad is coming. “Mac, baby,” Dennis says, sighing with relief when he finds Mac standing in the kitchen drinking a beer, “I need something from you.”

Mac barely has time to set his beer down on the counter before Dennis is all over him, kissing him hard and rough, fisting his hands in his hair. Mac wastes no time kicking it into high gear, shoving Dennis’s jacket off and yanking at his tie. Dennis starts making the most pleased little whimpers and murmuring something against Mac’s mouth.

It takes Mac a minute to make out what Dennis is saying, but when he does, desire washes over him so strongly he thinks he’s going to drown. He never did learn how to swim that well. “Mac,” Dennis is saying, whiny and needy, “please fuck me.”

“What,” says Mac, pulling at Dennis’s tie again, “was the little Asian boy not enough for you?”

Dennis laughs in a rich, low vibration. “Guess not.”

Mac feels sinful. Mac feels jealous. Mac feels everything all at once and he wants to make it stop.

“Bedroom,” he says to Dennis, pulling on his arm. He’s not asking. This time, Dennis doesn’t complain or even say a word.

They tumble onto Dennis’s bed and Dennis rolls over to the side table, fishing around in the top drawer for something. “Lube and condoms,” he says to Mac’s quizzical expression. And then, “Don’t give me that look, your dick isn’t coming anywhere near me without a condom.”

Necessary sacrifices, Mac thinks dizzily, shucking his pants off the side of the bed. Dennis is struggling to pull his black slacks off so Mac helps him, his fingers brushing against Dennis’s dick and eliciting a pleasing groan. When Dennis is completely naked from the waist down, he spreads his legs and slowly smiles at Mac.

“You haven’t done this before,” Dennis says, slicking up his fingers, “so I’m going to show you how it’s done.”

Mac is in the dark about what Dennis means until Dennis reaches a hand down his body and enters one finger inside himself, gasping a little and letting his eyes slip closed. Mac knows Dennis is putting on a show, trying to drive Mac off the deep end. It’s working.

Dennis adds a second figure and Mac’s hand finds its way to his dick, stroking himself as Dennis opens himself wide for Mac. By the time Dennis adds a third finger, Mac feels like he’s seconds away from exploding.

“Dennis,” he says lowly. Dennis smiles and withdraws his fingers.

“What are you waiting for,” says Dennis, motioning to the condom and the lube and then opening his legs even wider. “I don’t have all day.”

When Mac first pushes into Dennis it’s very slow and deliberate. Dennis keeps his eyes on Mac’s the whole time, staring at him like he’s going to eat him up, and when Mac finally bottoms out Dennis whines, high in his throat. Mac doesn’t move for several seconds, because _fuck_ , Dennis is so tight, and Mac wants this to last. When he still hasn’t moved, Dennis sighs and squirms beneath him.

“Maybe I should go find that Asian kid again,” murmurs Dennis. “He could fuck me harder than you are right now,” and it’s a challenge, and he’s trying to get Mac to take the bait, and Mac does, hook line and fucking sinker.

Mac pulls out and slams back in. It’s rough. Dennis moans loudly and shuts his eyes.

“Do that again,” Dennis instructs. “Fuck me until I scream.”

How could Mac say no to that?

They fall into a rhythm after that, fast and hard, Mac leaning down to bite at Dennis’s lips and his neck. It’s only when Mac looks down at Dennis’s lithe body trembling beneath him that he thinks, _Maybe this is what God wants me to do—protect the world from Dennis_. It’s only when Mac looks down at Dennis that he thinks, _I’m going to hell._

No one was drunk. No one forced him into this. This is not something he can take back.

He starts to pray.

It’s very quiet for a moment until Dennis opens his eyes and sees Mac mouthing something. “Mac,” he says, voice dark and filthy, “are you praying?”

Mac nods yes. Dennis groans.

“Out loud,” Dennis demands lowly, palming his own dick. “I want to hear you say it.”

Distantly, Mac knows this is a bad idea, knows Jesus is watching and can hear him, knows this is only going to take him on the fast track to hell in a pretty little hand basket. Presently, Dennis is jerking himself off while Mac fucks him hard and Mac is a little too far gone for thinking ahead.

“Father who art in heaven,” says Mac, “forgive me, for I have sinned.”

Dennis’s high pitched keening fills up the room, fills Mac up with a new level of lust. Mac says, “I have engaged in premarital sodomy with another man and I have liked it.”

“That’s it,” says Dennis. “You’re doing so good for me.”

“Forgive me my trespasses and lead me not into temptation,” says Mac, feeling his orgasm pooling in his stomach, a hot, burning thing. “But deliver me from evil.”

“Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,” says Mac. Dennis bites down on his own fist to quiet himself.

“Are you done?” whispers Dennis. “There’s something you forgot to say, baby.”

Mac swallows, hard, and opens his mouth to finish what he started.

(Dennis comes on the _amen._ They both do.)

“I didn’t fuck the Asian kid,” says Dennis, rough with post-orgasm high. “I just wanted to make you jealous.”

Mac nods. There isn’t a river wide enough to wash off all his shame and guilt.

 

\--

Waking up to Dennis standing in his bedroom door stopped becoming surprising the 100th time Dennis did it, so when Mac jerks awake to feel eyes on his back, he just makes a show of stretching himself out languidly and carries right on sleeping.

“It would be a shame for you to sleep through your whole birthday,” says Dennis petulantly.

“Mmrmfhg,” says Mac, both in surprise at what Dennis just said and in dissatisfaction at the bright light that greeted him when he opened an eye. “You haven’t remembered my birthday in years, dude,” he groans into his pillow. “And I’m hungover as shit.”

“Oh, no, I remember your birthday every year,” says Dennis casually. “I just usually choose not to acknowledge it.”

“Great,” says Mac. “Bye.”

“Get your ass up, I got you something,” Dennis says. “I was trying to be subtle about it, but whatever.”

“You’re about as subtle as a fucking passenger jet,” says Mac, but he’s slowly extracting himself from the bed anyway and padding into the living room, rubbing at his eyes, Dennis following him like the weirdest fucking puppy in the world.

What Mac sees in the living room sends him into a frenzy of excitement.

“A karaoke machine,” he says dumbly, staring at it with barely suppressed joy. “You got me the karaoke machine!”

When Mac turns to look at Dennis, he’s got one hand on his neck and the other in his pocket, looking pleased with himself. When Mac turns to look at Dennis, he loses control of himself. Neither of these things are a surprise.

When Mac gets excited, he can lose control and do things he usually keeps a lid on. But Dennis is giving him _that look_ and Mac is so happy to have his karaoke machine after all this time that he throws his arms around Dennis and kisses him right on the mouth, rough with joy and surprise. When he realizes what he’s done halfway through being done doing it, he freezes, goes to take a step back. Dennis’s hands find their way down to Mac’s hips and he holds him in place.

“Happy birthday,” says Dennis against Mac’s mouth.

Mac takes about three steps back and blushes down to his belly button. “I wanna try it out,” he says, jerking at the karaoke machine. “I think you should go first.”

In a daze, Mac realizes he reacted exactly how Dennis wanted him to, that Dennis was playing him like a fucking science experiment. Dennis smiles like the sun coming up.

 

  **2013.**

 

“Dennis,” says Mac, staring up at the ceiling from where he lay on the couch, “what would you do if I died?”

It’s the night after the robbery on that convenience store and Dennis is attempting to roast marshmallows with a cigarette lighter. It’s the saddest most white trash celebration of survival Mac has ever been in personal attendance to but it doesn’t matter, they survived it, though Mac keeps thinking about what if he _hadn’t_. At first, Dennis doesn’t seem to hear him, just watches a marshmallow burn with a calculated pleasure usually reserved for the eyes of serial killers, and then Mac just realizes that Dennis is making it a point to ignore him, to look happy about what he’s doing. (Mac keeps thinking about Dennis’s hands on his neck, Dennis screaming his name.)

“These are giant ass marshmallows,” Dennis says, not for the first time, and Mac considers the matter dropped, one of those things they aren’t gonna talk about, just one more thing to drink down into oblivion.

“Yeah,” says Mac. “Pass me a beer,” says Mac. (In his mind, Dennis is sobbing his name. In the real world, Dennis is cursing because he burned himself. Sometimes, for Mac, everything just blurs together into one big conglomeration of _Dennis_.)

 

\--

Several days later they’re on their way to pick up coffee before they head to the bar, bumping shoulders as they walk even though the whole road is open for them to walk on, when Dennis clears his throat and says, “I’d have to get a new roommate, at any rate,” and squints straight ahead.

Mac stops dead in his tracks, stopping Dennis with him. “What the fuck are you on about, bro?”

Dennis rolls his eyes, stares up at the grey slush of a sky and rocks back on the balls of his feet. “You’re an asshole and your room stinks, but your apple peeling skills may not be replaceable,” Dennis says. Dennis isn’t making sense, Dennis is talking about replacing him, Dennis looks sheepish like he always does when he’s saying something that is a Big Deal. Mac wishes every day with Dennis wasn’t some fucking mystery roller coaster ride.

Mac throws his arms up in an exaggerated display of impatience. “You’re weird as shit, dude,” he says, heading off down the street with a scowl. “It’s way too early for this.”

Dennis’s hand is on his shoulder. “Wait,” he’s saying, and then he’s pressing a hard and demanding kiss right against Mac’s mouth in the middle of the busy street where God and all his saints can see, telling anyone who is looking that Mac is a sinner and that he belongs to Dennis, and Mac wants to push him off but he doesn’t, of course he doesn’t.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Dennis says into his ear a moment later, breath hot and sending chills up Mac’s spine. “I won’t let you.”

Dennis takes off down the street and Mac, walking dazed and wobblylegged like some sort of helpless baby deer, takes off after him. “What the fuck, Den?”

Dennis rolls his eyes again and gesticulates with incredulity, like he can't believe Mac doesn't follow his short stops and quick outbursts, like Mac should know by now. He probably should. “I’m trying to answer your question!”

 _That was days ago_ , Mac wants to say. _You make my head so messed up I can’t keep up with you_ , Mac wants to say. What Mac says is, “oh,” and breaks out in a small jog to catch up. When he reaches Dennis, their hands brush, and Dennis is staring straight ahead at nothing but quirks his lips up anyway. In his mind he hears Dennis telling him that he won’t let him leave and he hears Dennis screaming his name as he bleeds out and Mac thinks that he’s going to regret this, thinks he already regrets it, thinks that he has an entire lifetime left to regret it. He doesn’t mind.

They walk into the bar shoulder to shoulder. They say hello to Dee and Charlie, they jerk each other off in the bathroom. It’s an amalgam of two people, it’s routine, a slow burn patchwork of regret and sin and sex.

When he kisses Dennis on the way back into the bar, their mouths still slick and disgusting with the aftertaste of coffee, it’s Mac’s own quiet way of saying _yeah_. Of saying _not going anywhere._

**Author's Note:**

> In case you were wondering which scenes from each season I drew from to write this fic, I decided to compile them here.
> 
> Obviously, everything pre-2005 was completely made up seeing as how that predates canon.  
> 2005 (season one): the opening scene to Gun Fever  
> 2006 (season two): the first scene takes place after Mac Bangs Dennis's Mom and the second after Million Dollar Baby  
> 2007 (season three): The Gang Gets Held Hostage and a brief mention of The Gang Dances Their Asses Off  
> 2008 (season four): The first scene is post Mac and Dennis: Manhunters and the last scene is during The Nightman Cometh  
> 2009 (season five): post The Gang Exploits the Mortgage Crisis and then post Mac and Dennis Break Up  
> 2010 (season six): after Mac Fights Gay Marriage/Dennis Gets Divorced and a brief mention of The Gang Gets Stranded In The Woods  
> 2011 (season seven): the first scene I fabricated and the second takes place after the events of The High School Reunion Part 2  
> 2012 (season eight): every scene I made up except the sex scene takes place post Frank's Back in Business and the karaoke machine is in reference to a conversation in The Gang Dines Out  
> 2013 (season nine): post The Gang Saves the Day.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
